Season 3, Episode 8
Production episode: 3×10
Original air date: November 8, 1968
Star date: 5476.3

Mission summary

With Spock in the captain’s chair, six archaic, sub-light speed missiles are headed straight for the Enterprise. Kirk quickly takes command (where was he, exactly?) and orders the missiles destroyed. Easy enough, but where did they come from? Sulu plots a course to the missiles’ origin to answer just that question.

Meanwhile, Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel are having it out in sickbay. Kirk arrives just in time to break up the fight–but Chapel looks sad, not angry, and McCoy asks her to leave. Kirk notes tactlessly that that “was quite a scene” (lack of subtlety will be a hallmark of this episode) and wants to know what the emergency is:

MCCOY: I’ve just completed the standard physical examinations for the entire crew. […] The crew is fit. I found nothing unusual, with one exception.
KIRK: Serious?
MCCOY: Terminal.
KIRK: What is it?
MCCOY: Xenopolycythemia. It has no cure.
KIRK: Who?
MCCOY: He has one year to live.
KIRK: Who is it?
MCCOY: The ship’s Chief Medical Officer.

Season 3, Episode 7
Production episode: 3×11
Original air date: November 1, 1968
Star date: Armageddon

Mission summary

An Enterprise landing party beams down to planet Beta XII-A with phasers drawn, responding to a distress call from a Federation colony that they can’t find. Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Chekov, and the redshirt are oblivious to the glowing mass of energy hovering suspiciously nearby, instead focusing on the Klingon battle cruiser that arrives on the scene.

Fans of good science fiction and Star Trek will be interested in this new audiobook, METAtropolis: Cascadia, an anthology of linked stories set in a futuristic version of the Pacific Northwest. This collection is the sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated METAtropolis (which included narration by actors from Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica) and features new fiction by four of its authors: Elizabeth Bear, Tobias S. Buckell, Jay Lake (who introduced the Cascadia setting in his METAtropolis story, “In the Forests of the Night” | free download), and Karl Schroeder, now joined by Mary Robinette Kowal and Ken Scholes. Their stories are brought to life by the voice talents of familiar Trek actors:

Audio samples of each story are available at the METAtropolis site, along with information about the authors and video interviews with the narrators, and you can download the audiobook at Audible.com or iTunes. This is the perfect combination of two of my favorite things, speculative fiction short stories and Star Trek; as soon as I can get a copy of it, I may review the anthology on this site as a whole or one story at a time in weekly installments.

Do you listen to audiobooks or any fiction podcasts? Does a celebrity narrator or voice talent you like influence your decision to download a story, or do you only care about the author?

Season 3, Episode 6
Production episode: 3×01
Original air date: October 25, 1968
Star date:4385.3

Mission summary

En route to establish relations with the Melkotians–a reclusive, papier-mâché-mask-wearing race–the Enterprise is intercepted by a space buoy with a very serious warning:

Aliens, you have encroached on the space of the Melkot. You will turn back immediately. This is the only warning you will receive.

Kirk hears it in English, but Spock hears it in Vulcan, Chekov hears it in Russian, and Uhura hears it in Swahili. It’s using some kind of telepathy to communicate to all of them. Though he understands the message perfectly, Kirk decides to disregard it pretty much immediately because “Our orders are very clear. We’re to establish contact with the Melkotians at all costs.”

Involuntary peace ahoy!

After some failed attempts at hailing them, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov beam down to what they think is the planet, but is actually just a giant fog machine because planets are expensive. Worse, they quickly discover that their communicators no longer work and the Melkotians don’t like trespassers. A Melkotian appears and calls the men “outside, a disease,” and says that because Kirk ordered his crew to do this thing, “yours shall be the pattern of your death.”

They are then instantly transported to a low-budget, flimsy Hollywood set of the Old West.

Season 3, Episode 5
Production episode: 3×07
Original air date: October 18, 1968
Star date: 5630.7

Mission summary

Enterprise is on routine taxi duty, escorting a less-than-routine diplomat back to his homeworld: Ambassador Kollos is a Medusan, “a race of beings who are formless, so utterly hideous” that just looking at one will drive the beholder mad. But on the up side, they’re very intelligent and have wonderful personalities.